I am a Brazilian biologist developing my master's degree in Environmental Conservation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My placement is with Conservation International- CI Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. I will be working in a restoration program in the Amazon producing a restoration proposal that indicates prioritized areas for restoration as well as costs and benefits of the restoration.
There has been one month and a half that I have been here in Rio de Janeiro with CI. After, researching a lot, discussing with my coworkers, and constantly updating my strategy, I finally defined the variables I will use to prioritize areas for restoration in the Tome Acu microregion, Para state. This process was long because I didn’t have a reference study from CI-Brazil of prioritization at the property scale. Previous studies were done for the whole Amazon, which is a very large scale, and many of the methods and data used did not fit into my scale. Something that is helping me a lot is to ask for feedback from my coworkers. As I am constructing a new methodology and in a very short period, it was great to ask for feedback from people in the office. They provided me with very good additions to my project. Now I have a group of variables that I believe will predict the most important areas for restoration in the project.
I always had a very romantic idea about the Amazon. The Amazon for me was an untouched nature with an immense forest and huge trees. Very much the classic thought of wilderness of Cronon (1995) that we have discussed during our course. Last week, I had a unique chance to experience the center of the Amazon rainforest in Para state for one week. CI organized an internal workshop to strengthen efforts to promote the Amazon restoration program. Is there better motivation to restore the Amazon other than experiencing the rainforest yourself? This workshop was a great opportunity to understand the magnitude of the program being proposed, to know CI members from all over, and to feel how it is to live in the Amazon.
The second day I came to CI, the director of Knowledge Management, who is my host supervisor, shared a fresh article with me. The heading was “Areas in the Amazon that were supposed to have zero deforestation lost 6 São Paulo cities in 3 decades” (Dantas). The news knocked me down right in the morning. It is sad to think that this big loss happened inside protected areas (PAs) and outside PAs was worse. Not only this, but the atmosphere around environmental issues is very delicate in Brazil. Our protected areas, environmental laws, environmental agencies, and the indigenous rights are all being threatened by the current politics led by the far-right president Bolsonaro. Hence, it is hard to keep motivated in the middle of a lot of bad news.
Rio de Janeiro is a beautiful city! This is the famous Pao de Acucar or “Sugar Loaf”, a symbol of the city.
I am at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
working with the Conservation International –CI Brazil. Here I am assisting CI
team to consolidate and promote a landscape restoration project in the Amazon
rainforest. This project aims to increase global carbon stock, aid local
property owners to regulate their lands according to environmental law, build
ecological corridors, and support biodiversity. The project hasn’t been implemented
yet, but CI has already secured money to start the restorations activities and
there are already 3 companies interested in implementing the program on their
lands. In order to kick off the program, CI lacks studies indicating, at the
property level, specific areas for restoration as well information of costs and
benefits of restoring these areas.
The Nelson Institute: Environmental Conservation Leadership Projects 